Beyond
the Wall of Fear
is an anthology of horror stories: Everything
from weird experiments to an HP Lovecraft adaption to witches, monsters
and crazed killers. I shot it over the course of just over a year, doing
a segment every few months - there are eight stories in all.

With
Beyond the Wall of
Fear being an anthology movie and thus tackling quite a few horror
subgenres - is horror a genre at all dear to you, and some of your genre
favourites and key influences?

I love all kinds of movies,
but horror and sci-fi are my favorite genres. My favorite movie is Phantasm. I love John Carpenter's stuff, David Cronenberg, Stuart Gordon
and many many others. Often what I like about a movie is that it has its
own character and feel, a 'vibe' I often call it, whether it is a
quirkiness or a slickness or the dark humor or whatever, it's something
that raises it above what might have otherwise been a stereotypical genre
flick.

What made you choose the
anthology approach in the first place?

As
with almost all of my movies, there are multiple reasons why it developed
in a certain way.

For
one, Madeline Morgan, an actress I had worked with many years ago (who
then moved out of the area) popped up at a horror convention I was at in
the spring of 2015 and it turned out I was going to be in her new town a
few weeks later. I had finished several features in the last few years and
did not yet have another project in the works but wanted to see if we
could shoot something while I was there. I did an anthology way back at
the end of the 1990s and for one of the segments, the original actress I'd
written it for ended up moving. The guy whose house I was shooting half
the movie at said he could get his neighbor to fill in so I went ahead
with the scheduled shoot. Well, she did the best she could but was not
really an actress and there were many other things about that short that I
had to compromise on. It always kind of bothered me, so I decided to do a
remake of that segment with Madeline and we shot it at her apartment in a
matter of hours. At the time I figured I would either put the short up
online or maybe work it into an anthology.

Another
influence was that I have attended the HP Lovecraft Film Festival in
Portland, Oregon several times and have always thought about doing an
adaption of one of his stories. I had a unique slant on The Statement
of Randolph Carter that mixed in a bit of some local history, so that
became another segment.

Also
in 2015 I met Jackey Neyman Jones [Jackey
Neyman Jones interview - click here], who played the little girl Debbie in
the cult classic and Mystery Science Theater 3000 favorite (literally,
during the 2016 Thanksgiving Marathon, fans voted it the #1 favorite
episode) Manos The Hands of
Fate, and discovered that she lived in a
town just up the road from me! She said she was interested in being
involved in a future project so I fleshed out an idea I had worked on a
few years earlier and wrote it up for her and we shot it later that year.

By
this point, I had decided that I liked the break from features and would
just continue to pull together a short every month or two and eventually
assemble them all into an anthology.

What can you tell
us about your movie's approach to horror (as in suspense vs sudden shocks,
atmosphere vs all-out gore and the like)?

Each
story called for something different.

Carter
was an H.P. Lovecraft adaption, so I wanted there to be the slow build-up
and feeling of impending dread that is so essential to his stories.

A
few others were more of a build-up of suspense, broken up by a bit of
humor here and there, like Curse of Pelican Bay and Walking the
Dog.

To
be honest as the year went by and I was gathering these shorts, I realized
that I was pretty short on blood, which is usually splattered with abandon
in my other movies. So I made sure the last few I shot, 'Crazed' and
'Scanned' had several bloody scenes.

So
the answer to your question is that it's a bit of a mixed bag. On a lot of
my features, I try to balance the build-up of tension with some humor and
throw some jump-scare things in, but try not to over-rely on them

Also, I found
your movie quite amusing at times - so do talk about Beyond
the Wall of Fear's brand of humour for a bit!

I do
tend to like working some quirky humor into my stuff, mostly situational
or character-driven - I think it helps to give the characters just a
little more depth and also is a nice way to break up or smash cut against
scenes of horror to make things more interesting.

What
can you tell us about your overall directorial approach to your story at
hand?

I try to have fun on set, at least have a fun
atmosphere. Even though there is often gruesome or intense stuff happening
on screen, I am lucky enough to work with a lot of people who just love
horror, love making movies, and that keeps the mood fun. Being that I
write, direct and shoot, I usually know what I want and work with the
actors to get it. Sometimes someone has a good suggestion and I take it if
it works within everything else I want to do. But I think knowing what I
want, editing in my head as I shoot, helps things move along quickly. I
have read reviews where they say something along the lines of it seeming
like the people making this movie must have had a good time, so perhaps
some of that comes through even in the final product.

Do talk about your cast, and why exactly these
people?

I
started offmaking movies with my friends and a lot of them have stuck
around into this start of my third decade of making microbudget flicks.
And that had lead to working with friends of friends. And then I’ve met
people at screenings and at conventions who wanted to work with me. I have
not gone the traditional route of holding auditions or things like that,
I’ve just operated on a more casual level.

I
have been VERY lucky to have friends who I think are very talented! Some
of the folks in Beyond
the Wall of Fear
I have known since middle
school! And if you look over my last few movies, you can see that there is
a bit of a family or ‘let’s put on a show’ feel as many faces turn
up over and over again.

I
mentioned Jackey Neyman Jones [Jackey
Neyman Jones interview - click here] earlier and this was her first movie with
me. I was a producer and director of photography on Manos Returns with her this last summer and I am sure we will work together more in the
future.

I’ll
just mention two other people I was really excited to get into the movie.
Both George Stover and Tom Griffith were in The Alien Factor and Nightbeast which were a couple of low-budget sci-fi/horror movies
from indie filmmaker Don Dohler. His movies were inspirational to me and I
was lucky to correspond with him several times before he passed away in
2006. I was able to have George and Tom get their scenes shot where they
live on the east coast and I cut them in with stuff I had shot here.
George even wore the very same lab coat that he wore in The Alien
Factor! I geeked out!

A few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set
atmosphere?

Well
it was really eight shoots and a few were multiple days. But as I
mentioned, I try to keep things light on set, have some fun while working
to make something entertaining to watch.

On
the Carter shoot, scheduling was tricky because people are so busy so I
was pretty much locked into one date. And leading up to that date, the
forecast was for a huge rainstorm. I checked with the guys to see if they
were still willing to stick to the schedule and they were troopers. So we
shot in the pouring rain and I mean POURING! We all got totally soaked.
But in the end, I think it really added to the whole atmosphere of dread
and so glad it rained! It would have had a totally different feel had it
been sunny.

For
another segment, I had an actress who had to drop out 2 days before the
shoot! Luckily another friend was able to step in at the last minute and
threw herself into the role, literally throwing herself on the floor and
against a wall!

I
used one house as three different locations for two segments. As The
Curse of Pelican Bay begins, we see Jackey on the phone with her agent
who tells her to go to a beach house he owns. We shot that upstairs in the
house that she ends up traveling to for the rest of the segment. In fact,
that house is nowhere near the beach! Months after that shoot, I drove an
hour to the coast to get some footage of the beach and surrounding town.
Creative editing plus some sound effects seems to have pushed the
illusion. That same house was used for the witches story. I planned that
so was just careful to shoot certain angles and in certain rooms for each.
When Jackey is at the table on her laptop, the kitchen from the witches
story is just offscreen!

I premiered the movie at the
Crypticon Seattle Film Festival in May of 2016. We had a very full room
for a midnight show and people seemed to get a kick out of it and we had
a good Q&A afterwards. The film was chosen for the Northwest Comicfest
FIlm Fest in Salem, Oregon a few months later and again we had a good
turnout. I screened it in Portland, Oregon at the indie-friendly Clinton
Street Theater and finally at a local theater pub. I have gotten nice
reactions and people have enjoyed the mix of horror with some tension and
humor thrown in.

Right now I have been
concentrating on writing some scripts, both for features and some shorts.
Last summer I co-produced and was director of photography for Manos
Returns, and that is currently in the last stages of post-production, so
excited to see that play a few festivals in 2017. Several cast members
from the original return and the director is my friend Seattle-based
filmmaker Tonjia Atomic [Tonjia
Atomic interview - click here].

What got you into
filmmaking in the first place, and did you have any formal education on
the subject?

I
mentioned Don Dohler’s The Alien Factor earlier and it was truly
an inspiration. I caught it on an indie TV station not long after I had
moved all the way across the country when I was 11 years old. I already
loved science fiction and monsters, and here was a movie that reminded me
of where I used to live (Don shot in Maryland and I grew up in New Jersey
not far away). But the big thing was the amateurness (which I do find
charming) made me feel like “I could do that!” I had drawn my own
comics for years, so the leap to storyboards was not that great. I had
shot some things with my dad’s super-8 film camera and then my friend
John got a VHS videocamera and we made all sorts of skits and music videos
and shorts. Years later after I had gotten out of college and run a comic
shop for a number of years, I made a short feature inspired by The
X-Files called Dimension of Blood. Soon I was selling homemade
VHS tapes of my movies through Draculina Magazine and my website. John was
also a writer and director and I was cameraman for all of the movies he
made, while also making my own features. And I just have not stopped!

No
formal education. I have an art degree in graphic design and as I said had
always drawn, but my film stuff has all been learned by just doing it.

As
I mentioned, I started shooting on VHS - my motto has always been do the
best you can with what you have. I moved on up through various formats to
shooting on HD today. I did a lot of movies with my friend John Bowker
like The Evilmaker and Housebound and Platoon of the Dead. At the same time I was making stuff like
Underbell (with a
then-just-a-college-student Heather Storm, who is now on the Garage
Squad TV show), Twisted Fates and Bloodsucking Redneck
Vampires.

I think for the most part I am easy going. I can get worked up when
things are going wrong but that does not happen too often. I do often have
what I want in my head, so can usually adjust actors’ performances with
just small suggestions or tweaks for emphasis, etc.

Filmmakers who inspire you?

Don Coscarelli is one - he is a guy who is very very kind, but knows
what he wants; he does things his own way and his movies have their own
feel to them. John Carpenter is another. Not only do I love his stuff, but
he also puts a real flavor to his movies - they are unlike any other. The
fact that he often writes his own stuff and scores it further adds to his
projects really having his stamp on them. Don Dohler was an inspiration
both as a filmmaker and a man. He did the best he could with what he had
and his movies, while low-budget, had heart and his recurring cast gave it
a small town put-on-a-show feel. Plus he loved monsters! As a man, Don
helped out tons and tons of filmmakers and effects artists and was very
open with sharing knowledge and advice. Fred Olen Ray would be another
influence. Another fan of sci-fi and horror, Fred is another maverick who
does things his own way, and early on worked through all sorts of
hardships to just keep making movies. He also ran a great online bulletin
board years ago and I got all sorts of knowledge through the conversations
there, and was excited to finally meet and hang out with him in person
recently.

Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to
ask?

I
did have my first graphic novel come out not too long ago. It’s a dark
comedy called Demonized, written by a filmmaker friend Henry Weintraub.
I did all the artwork and his wife did the cover. It was published by
Hard Case Comics and you can check out some preview pages here:
http://skullfaceastronaut.com/demonized.html

Other
than that, the website and blog are the places to keep up with me.
I’ve been making these microbudget movies for a long time and expect
to continue making more, so for anyone interested, check ‘em out!

Thanks
for the interview, Mike, and thanks for keeping (re)Search my Trash
going for so long!